Auto racing is a dangerous sport. From the very earliest races, there have been crashes and as speeds have increased, so did the severity of the injuries.
The initial races in August 1909 were stopped because of the carnage. When racing resumed in May 1910, the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway had built a one-story wooden structure with a platform on top so that the medical workers could watch the race. The Speedway was also equipped with an ambulance. Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis has provided all of the medical staffing, supplies and provisions throughout the track’s 114-year history.
Medical care at the Speedway took a step forward when Dr. Thomas Hanna began his services to IMS in1936 with limited equipment and resources. When Dr. Hanna became the medical director for IMS in 1960, it was estimated that one out of every seven drivers died as a result of an accident. During this period, if someone needed to be airlifted to the Methodist Hospital, they used a news helicopter for the short trip of about four miles.
Tony Hulman, who purchased IMS in 1945, had a new medical facility built in 1947. Located near the garages in the infield, it is the oldest building on the Speedway grounds. The in-field medical center has eighteen beds. To avoid the drivers being mobbed, they are cared for in a separate area. On Race Day, this facility and the Speedway’s fifteen first aid stations treat between 500 and 800 people. The highest number of people ever treated is 1,500. The ailments generally range from cuts, bruises and headaches to more serious conditions including strokes, heart attacks and asthma.
Dr Stephen Olvey first volunteered his services to the Speedway in 1969 during medical school. When he volunteered at the track, he was surprised that most of the medical attention was paid to the spectators. When there was a crash, a fire truck would respond. The firemen had no medical knowledge and simply loaded the victims in the back of the ambulance to take them to the hospital for treatment. While this might seem strange to us today, at the time, there were no paramedics to respond to highway crashes. Dr. Olvey and his team were at the forefront of paramedic training.
The drivers were realistic about the outcome of major crashes. They would either be seriously injured or would die in the crash. They didn’t want to seek medical care because others would assume something was wrong with them. As the medical team responded to more crashes reducing the severity of the outcome, the attitude of the drivers began to change in the 1970s. They became more vocal about wanting to be protected from injury.
Dr. Olvey asked Dr. Henry Bock to help him staff the entire Indianapolis track with medics to be able to respond to serious injuries much faster than ever before. He added some basic medical equipment including tourniquets, blankets and compression bandages to the response vehicles. The two men became co-assistant Medical Directors in 1976. Dr. Henry Bock served as the head of emergency services at IMS from 1982 until 2006. He served in the same role with IndyCar from its inception in 1996. Dr. Bock was on the team which developed the SAFER barrier which absorbs energy during a wreck reducing the severity of driver injuries.
Beginning in the 1970s, Dr. Bock or Dr. Olvey traveled with USAC, then the governing body for open-wheel racing, as an on-track physician. When Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) split from USAC, Dr. Olvey left USAC and IMS to join CART at the urging of several drivers and owners.
Like Dr. Olvey, Dr. Terry Trammel, an orthopedic specialist, began volunteering at the Indianapolis 500 during his med school days. Together, they established the rapid intervention system for drivers injured in crashes which transformed motorsports medical care . They have been inducted into the Motorsport Hall of Fame of America.
There were a number of crashes in the 1992 Indianapolis 500. Afterward, Dr. Trammel began working with Dr. John Melvin on post-crash analysis of the factors that led to various injuries. This led not only to the SAFER barrier but also to the HANS device which is a head and neck restraint system.
Dr. Geoffrey Billows began working at IMS during his residency in 1993 and served as an AMR IndyCar Safety Team physician. He became the director of medical services at IMS in 2006.
On Race Day, IMS becomes Indiana’s second largest city. The infield hospital is staffed with six Emergency Medicine physicians including a trauma surgeon, a neurosurgeon, orthopedic surgeon, ten to twelve nurses and a physical therapist. The physicians are specially trained to manage motorsports injuries. After James Hinchcliffe’s crash in 2019, the Speedway started a small blood bank. The Speedway has racers on the track about 150 days a year. Emergency physicians are at the track nearly every day in May.
Motorsports medical innovations continue. Today, all the race cars can transmit the drivers’ biometric data including heart rate, respiratory rate and body temperature to the medical staff.
IU Medical School, based in Indianapolis, established the world’s only Motorsports Medicine Fellowship which trains physicians to evaluate, manage and rehabilitate injuries sustained in high-speed crashes. Dr. Julia Vaizer was the first Motorsports Medicine fellow. With the retirement of Dr. Billows at the end of the 2022 racing season, she was named head the medical team at IMS and IndyCar.